As part of Columbia University’s SHAPE program for gifted high school students, I designed and taught a hands-on elective introducing students to algorithmic trading and technical analysis using real-world tools like TradingView and Pine Script.
Over the course of six weeks, I guided students through foundational financial concepts, risk management strategies, and step-by-step coding of their own trading algorithms.
1. The Challenge
Most students had no prior experience with programming or markets. My goal was to make quantitative finance accessible, exciting, and practical. I structured the course around active learning, visual tools, and an end-of-week trading competition that gave students immediate feedback on their strategies.
2. Curriculum
The course blended financial theory, technical analysis, and algorithmic logic. Key modules included:
Foundations of Finance: Stocks, crypto, bonds, futures, and risk management
Technical Indicators: SMA, EMA, RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, VWAP
TradingView & Pine Script: Hands-on lessons in plotting indicators, writing strategies, and visualizing backtests
Coding Concepts: Variables, logic, if statements, plotting, and strategy entries in Pine Script v5
Strategy Design: Students implemented and tested strategies such as moving average crossovers, RSI-based signals, and volatility filters
3. Final Project
To put their learning into practice, students competed in a simulated Algo Trading Game. Working solo or in pairs, they built and refined original trading strategies using everything they learned. Strategies were backtested on real stocks, and top performers were recognized for their creativity, logic, and performance.
3. Why It Matters
This elective empowered students to see markets not as noise—but as data to be decoded. Through this course, students gained confidence in both coding and critical thinking, and several expressed interest in pursuing finance or computer science in college.
The course was praised for making complex topics fun, visual, and tangible. More than a class—it was a launchpad.